The

School
Constitution

Student: Khushi Patel

Personal Project Supervisor: Lissa Chazot

MYP Coordinator: Minoo Joshi

School: Mahatma Gandhi International School

MYP-5 (2015-16)
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Acknowledgement
I would like to thank a number of people for their contribution to this project
and my learning. The reinforcement that I have received from my loved ones has
helped me in various situations that I overcame. I would specially thank my
supervisor, Lissa Chazot, for making my journey in this project a success. Big thanks
would go to all the teachers for being the fulcrum of this project by guiding me and
by giving me a right direction to move towards achieving my goal.

I show gratitude towards,

My family and friends who constantly counseled me and conversations with them
instigated various ideas and notions.

Smt. Anita Karwal, IAS. The Chief Electoral Officer, Gujarat who is also the
chairperson of the Technical Committee for the formation of tools for voter
education for the urban youth and school children

Kanan Dhru, who is a progressive lawyer and a member of the Technical

Committee for the formation of tools for voter education for the urban youth and
school children

I am gratifying for the support I received from my supervisor, Lissa Chazot, who
guided me throughout and giving me lucidity into reaching my goal. I thank my
MYP coordinator, Minoo Joshi and my Student Mentor, Shiraz Wagenaar, who have
directed me at all, times.

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Introduction
In a democratic nation like India, you must be above the age of 18 to be deemed
a citizen and contribute to democratic processes. What about people under the age
of 18, in other words students? Don’t they have any rights or duties as minor
citizens? This is a gap that is waiting to be addressed. Can students feel a real sense
of belonging if they do not contribute to the country or experience governance first
hand? If we compare a country to a school, we can compare students of a school to
citizens. As citizens of India they have a constitution which gives them a framework
with techniques to express their grievances, raise their voice, amend laws etc. Why
not students?

Even almost seven decades after Independence, India being the world’s largest
and most diverse democracy does not have reliable empirical data on what exactly
students are thinking about democracy and what values they are growing up with to
evolve as humane and active citizens of a country, if we don’t equip the future of
our country how can we expect them to act responsibly as citizens?

Take a typical case, a boy is beaten up by his classmate because he is different.

He is threatened not to inform anyone about the physical abuse and bullying. Afraid
of getting teased further, he agrees not to inform anyone. The same is practiced for
a second time, creating a cycle, the student wants to complain but he has no
platform to raise his voice except complain to the school authorities and get
maligned further by his classmates. He either complains to the authorities or
suppressed this, and then the dissent is suddenly expressed as explosive anger.
What is a possible solution to such cases? Can’t students find their own solutions?
Can’t this energy be channelized? Such pressing questions have led to the ideation
of this project.

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Being a student myself, I will take up this issue and I will write a School- level
Constitution for Pan-Indian 1schools as a part of my Personal Project. This report will
talk about how I was able to achieve my goal and what difficulties I faced during
this process.

1
A definition of Pan: all-inclusive, especially in relation to the whole of a continent, racial group, religion, etc.
So, Pan-India refers to something that is across whole of India.

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Criterion A – Investigation
The goal of my Personal Project is to write a Constitution for school students to form
a student council and become empowered to make concrete democratic decisions and
become autonomous through a framework inspired from the Constitution of India. As
students don’t have any platform to voice their opinions. My personal concern is in Political
Science, and this project has associations to that particular subject. Also I have interest in
doing Government projects for community, which enabled me to explore Rights and
Responsibilities. I have done many Government projects 2over the years, huge or trivial, and
keenly participated in them. Other than that, my Grandfather and my Uncle are active
participants in the election processes in the parliament, having a political background from
the beginning, I was always fascinated about the fact that how exactly the Indian
Government works, and what role does the Constitution plays in a life of a democrat.

The main purpose of this project is to endorse a fair constitution to a student that
previously had none; the student’s begins to see an action-reaction relationship begins
during the council. As a constitution would influence the student community and its
individuals, this allows every student to participate for themselves, and to represent their
interests without proxies, unabridged. Since I live in India, my target audience would be
the students3 who wish to fight for their ideas for society, who are never heard of, as there
is no system for them to take advantage and reach a larger audience. Largely the target
audience would be the Interested Schools across India; this target audience will grow
organically.

Since this project focuses on the furtherance of the students and society, this project
strongly links to Fairness and Development. The project aims to educate students of the
council to form more concrete democratic decisions by referring to the Constitution;
students will explore rights and responsibilities and understand the importance of equality in
all contexts. It gives them access to equal opportunities. By which they can resolve conflicts

2
Writing a class level constitution: Grade 8 students have been studying about and living Democracy
first hand as part of their class project. They drafted our own Constitution using principles of Direct
Democracy for daily class functioning
3
Students from Private English medium schools. Students who wish to experience democratic
processes and have a system that allows them to.

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by going through democratic processes. By coming across words like Governance, Politics,
Rights, Duties, Laws, Justice, Freedom and a sense of responsibility, Students can grow up
to become aware and responsible citizens of their country.

As a part of my Prior Knowledge, I had written a Class-level Constitution in 8th grade as

a part of my class project/curriculum. Written a Class-level Constitution, the experience gave
me a very clear idea about the processes that one has to go through while drafting a
Constitution. While drafting the constitution, the processes made me familiar with the
Official terminology and Technical sentence structures. I have been working with 2 lawyers
on their government project, which was an initiative to introduce the “Constitution of India”
to students. Name of the Organization is LAWTOONS4. It has been 2 years since I am a part
of their project, working as a content writer and a part of the story boards in the comics.

I have had worked with an external law forum; CMCA5 .The Yuva Nagarik Meter (YNM)
is CMCA’s pioneering national benchmark study to establish a baseline of democratic
citizenship values and attitudes of youth in Urban India. CMCA has been in the endeavor of
nurturing democratic citizenship values among school children) .I have been working with
this organization for the past four months. I have also attended 3 Youth Parliaments6,
where I was the spokesperson for my group, and the solutions were selected for the bill
which was to be sent to the government by the Organization. The participation in the Youth
Parliament helped me with the language part, where I had to write and draft speeches with
formal language and technical terminology. It also gave an idea about how the Parliament

4
The aim of LAWTOONS is to introduce “The Indian Constitution” to Young citizens of India in the
form of a comic strip. Lawtoons is one of its kind project that uses the medium of cartoons to
illustrate the laws and legal rights.
5
Children Movement for Civic Awareness
6
The Youth Parliament (or "The YP Foundation") is a support organization for young
people in India. It was established in July 2002 by social entrepreneur Ishita Chaudhry with support
from the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. In 2007, The Youth Parliament was legally incorporated
'The YP Foundation'- a trust working with the express mandate of developing innovative ventures by
minds, facilitating leadership skills and thinking power and increasing awareness on issues of global
importance amongst young people.

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works, how a bill is passed, and what all formalities are to be done. I have worked with Lissa
ma’am on 2 different Government projects.

The projects were government campaigns to make “Sankalp Patra” 7for the Chief Electoral
Officer of Gujarat, and making social media content for NERPAP 8campaign by the Election
Commission of India, to create voters awareness. By working on this I have first-hand
knowledge on how the Electoral Processes works in a Democratic Country. I have
experience in drafting different types of books9 in MYP years. This included planning and
creating, drafting, getting it checked, drafts again and a final print. These different learning
experiences will be great source of knowledge to do this project. It is specific to Political
Sciences and Language (A; English), since writing a Constitution takes a lot of language
aspect, as well as Political Science portion equally.

A lot of research will help to write a Constitution for all to understand and to use. For
research, many sources consider are categorized into 2, Primary and Secondary. My primary
Sources are surveys and interviews, as primary sources mean to get the information directly
from the cradle. I will survey students from different mediums10 across India virtually,
through emails. The survey will give me an exact need of the Constitution, which will help

7
: Sankalp Patra: to educate and promote voting among 60 lakh parents of primary school
students. The pamphlets were not only distributed across Gujarat but were also used during an
awareness campaign by Radio Mirchi by nabbing traffic offenders and making them sign the Sankalp

Patra, a pledge to vote in the upcoming elections.

8
NERPAP: National Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Programme (NERPAP)
is voter registration project of the Election Commission of India. It will link the Elector's Photo Identity
Card (EPIC) with the Aadhar number of the registered voter. It is aims to create an error-

free voter identification system in India, especially by removing duplications.[1][2] The project was
launched on 3 March 2015.
9
School Newsletter, Magazine, Constitution, Rule book, Story book, Auto0biography etc.
10
International board(IB), State board(GB), Central Board(CBSE), and ICSE, which will help me, get
different concepts/theories that students have about the project and the Constitution. It will give me
numerical values of the knowledge students have about the Government system and the Indian
Constitution.

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me constitute the structure in a particular manner. I will interview a progressive lawyer

Kanan Dhru11 to get a deeper insight of the Constitution, and the expenditures12 of the
Constitution. I will also interview High Court Judge13, to know the way how a Court system
works. And how is the Constitution applied in different situations? Other primary sources
include newspaper articles related to the problems students are facing n their school, and
the humiliation they are facing. Since Newspaper articles vary from primary to secondary,
the articles I will state, contains stories related to students who have been beaten by the
comrades and teachers. I have watched some of the actually Parliament discussion live on
television, which abetted me about the similarities between a Parliamentary discussion and a
class/school council. Since the video was live14 by the government, it can be considered as a
primary source for the project. Secondary sources would be to get information indirectly. I
will refer to The Constitution of India, American Constitution, upgraded and official one with
all amendments to make key points required to write a Constitution of my own. The Indian
Constitution will guide me the most, as I have associated India with a school and Students
with the citizens, so it is easy for me to break down the official articles in the constitution
and re-write them to brand my own. I will read and annotate the Constitution thoroughly,
so that I get a flow of the language and the technical terminology. The American
constitution is known as one of the best written constitution around the world. Later I will
be comparing the worlds longest and the shortest constitution, a comparative analysis shall
be done in order to gain knowledge upon the differences and similarities between countries
and its systems. I will also have to read the UN Charter for Children Rights15 and UN
Convention of Human Rights/UDRH16, which will give me an insight to the global text, and

11
Founder of Lawtoons and active participant in projects to aware citizens about their rights and
responsibility.
12
Benefits and backfires of a constitution, particularly the Indian Constitution.
13
Hon’ble Mr. Justice A.G. Uraizee, Judge, High court of Gujarat.
14
LOK SABHA is the name of the channel, where all the official open meetings are displayed “live”.
15
The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the only legal document that exists, which is the most
rapidly and widely ratified international human rights treaty in history. The Convention changed the
way children are viewed and treated – i.e., as human beings with a distinct set of rights instead
of as passive objects of care and charity.

16
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of
human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all

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how fundamental rights are perceived globally. I shall issue the weekly magazine
IndiaToday17. I also referred different online PDF’s18 and collage Constitutions for guide
lines. I will be using the internet, where I will be referring to the official website of CMCA19.

regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in
Paris on 10 December 1948 General Assembly resolution 217 A as a common standard of
achievements for all peoples and all nations.
17
in order to get exact details about the ongoing in the Government and the Parliament
18
Constitution of Oxford, How to write a constitution 5 steps, Olifiled School Constitution, How to
write a club -constitution?,Kolevine High school Council, How to run a council?

19
CMCA.in (Children’s Movement for Civic Awareness): I referred to this website, and I got the
numerical values of the number of students knowing their right, their duty, in their country. Similarly,
my projects aims to provide students with an autonomous frame work of democratic processes,
which can be practiced in the school, with the help of the specially drafted constitution.

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Criterion B – Planning
Firstly, I made a mind map which gave me an idea of the process and how the whole
system will work, along with the months allocated to every single process. The process is
divided into 420 distinctive parts; Investigating is the very first step.

Secondly, I made an outline of the schedule and the initial plan of action for the
process. The processes will be recorded by the help of Process Journal, and evidence will be
collected visuals, such as screenshots and pictures. This will assist me to reflect on the
process later on.

Simultaneously there were a few specification set to ensure the persistence and quality
of the outcome. Specifications help build the project more concrete with some definite
goals and outlines. Listed specifications will be the base, on which the outcomes would be
assessed in Criterion D: Evaluating.

In accordance to my knowledge, a constitution can be best expressed in a form of a

book21, I chose book as my product. It even fulfilled the requirement of the frame work
planned for the constitution. To make it look interesting I plan to make it square22. The
design of the cover23 page would be inspired from the Indian Constitution, which has Velvet
covering and Golden inscribes. The color scheme is also inspired from the Indian
Constitution, which is very simple and has bold and formal colors24, which makes it look like
an official document. The Font style shall be constant in order to make the document, well

20
Investigation, Planning, Taking action, and Reflecting
21
A Constitution can be best expressed in a form of a book. As countries use the constitution, in a
form of a living document for justice. Text in the book will be the voice of a student.
22
Square represents Stability and Solidity. A constitution as far as my understanding will be
considered as one of the most Solid document for the students to take stands. Square screams
rational, practical and conformity. And Square stands out in form of a book. The dimensions I plan
are 7X7 inches.
23
The first 2 copies of the Final draft will be velvet coated, to give it a feel of an official
document for submission and Documentation.

24
Black, Grey, White, Cream and Red are known to be formal colors. Cream and red are bold and iconic
colors, where black and white stands on its simplicity. Grey plays a neutral role. Constitution being a
formal and official document, all the above mentioned 5 colors fits the best. These are the only 5 colors
that are used in the book, considering the font and the page colors

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formatted and cluster-free, so that it does not confuse the importance of any article or word
in particular. The layout and the format will be a fusion of a few constitutions, like the
Indian Constitution and the US Constitution, but more inclined towards the Indian. The
langue and the terminology have to be very specific, broad words cannot be used, and law
language shall be constant throughout. The Flexibility of the Constitution lies in the
Amendments, and the constitution itself, as it’s a framework which offers students to make
one for their own school. There should be 2 distinctive parts, School Council25 and the
Class26 Council, and so as the responsibilities and the duties are distributed. All possible
democratic processes27 should also be there, processes that can be worked upon in a
school. Ministries have to well explained, and have to make sure that there is no overlap in
the responsibility and the authority distribution, making sure that the students don’t get
power more than the authority of the school. Two of the most important things in the
constitution are the Fundamental Rights28 and Duties29.

Then, I discussed the idea with my supervisor and class teacher. I spoke to two lawyers
and one court judge about the content that I have planned, and to know their point of view
which would be very useful in the process of reflection. They gave me advice and
suggestions while written the articles. Then, I also investigated on some websites and books
to conform the information that I received from my sources.

25
The school council consists of all the Ministries, Home ministry, President, and the Prime Minister
being the head.
26
The class council consists of the entire council, member from a respective class, and its President,
Secretary, Chief Minister.
27
Election: The process of election shall be defined properly; including the ratio of electing
any member. Majority vote shall be followed. Billing: Passing any class rule in the class.
Amendment: Passing Amendments through the process of voting. Emergency Provisions:
Emergency provisions provide the security of the students, and so it’s important.

28
Rights is the part, where both good and bad profit can be taken, and so the rights have to be very
well written in order
29
All the duties shall be defined properly for the understanding of the responsibility. Duties such as
1) Respect 2) Defending ideas put forth in the preamble and the constitution 3) Striving for
excellence

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After my research was done, I formed a questionnaire for the survey which was
conducted in and outside the school community. This was to get a wider perspective about
how the audience/target audience expects the product to be like and what is the exact need
of the product, considering the problems they face in their school, and accordingly the
constitution’s articles should be formed.

After getting a perspective from different professionals, I got an idea about how the
frame works had to be constituted. I organized a roundtable30 meeting with secretaries and
chairman’s from classes 4th to 10th to review and discuss the first draft of the constitution. I
made them read the whole constitution thoroughly, I also represented some of the few
points that were new for them, and the over-all frame work was understood, the working of
the constitution was also discussed. Later, I made them write issues that they face in their
class personally, and asked them to find solutions using the articles provided in the
constitution. I received some very concrete feedback on my specific articles and ministries. I
started re-drafting the constitution. Necessary changes were to be implemented and the,
the evaluation of the product has to be done.

My product is going to be evaluated by rolling the constitution in MGIS (4th-10th) and a

School in Rishikesh. After using the constitution, a survey would be taken in order to know
the success of the product. The survey will be based on criterion/specifications. The pros
and cons would be discussed personally in MGIS, and through Skype with the school in
Rishikesh. One more way in which I will be evaluating my product would be, evaluation
against the criterion/specification. By tick marking the number of criterions fulfilled, and
what the reason was.

To be organized is one of the major tasks which were to be fulfilled in order to achieve
the goal and attending the deadlines on time. Also, accepting criticism and feedback in a
constructive way was challenging. Dealing with disappointments was also something I had
to accept and take in in a positive manner. Organizing my schedule and following it was a
very important task and to complete the assignments on time.

30
What is round table meetings like. ( still needs to be written)

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Criterion C – Taking Action

After all the extensive research was complete, I had a very distinctive idea about the
plan of action that I had to implement now in the process. I will be following the planned
process to achieve the goal.

Taking the 8th grade constitution as my base, I started drafting the constitution. I started
with simple rights and duties that a student had towards its community and school.
Simultaneously, I was using the annotated Indian constitution as my guide to write the
constitution. Firstly, I had made a huge mind-map/web on the frame work, about the power
distribution and work distribution before writing the articles. Once I was clear with the
duties, I started making committees influenced from the Indian Constitution’s Ministries
(Executive power). Once the basic frame work was made, I started writing the preamble31,
which is one of the first things that come when you read any constitution. Later on, I started
drafting the articles falling under each section32. I started with the Class level rules and
regulations, and then went on to the School level duties and responsibility. Once completed
a rough draft of the constitution, I got it corrected from Lissa ma’am, for the validity of the
terminology and the frame work. Every time I get feedback, I implement the necessary, as
soon as possible, so that the next draft can be sent for checking the other part of it. The
second stage was the language part; I got the English corrected from Siddhart sir33, and
Anita ma’am34. When the 20 draft of the constitution was ready, I presented it to the
lawyers, Kanan Dhru and Kelly Dhru, for the factual part, and the “Law” language. The last
thing which was done, was designing the cover page and do the layout.

When, the constitution was ready to deploy, the last stage of checking was done by the
court judge, personally. He made out some realistic error, once that was corrected. The
Constitution was ready for deployment.

Before deployment, I arranged a meeting, where the interested students can come and
see the constitution, and we can discuss the use of it. The first Roundtable meeting was
arranged where all the Chairperson and secretaries were supposed to be present, in order to
get a clear idea from the target audience. We discussed the pros and cons. I asked them the

31
What is a preamble
32
Mention the sections
33
Who is sidharth sir
34
Who is anita maam

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problem they face personally, and then asked them to get a solution from the constitution
itself. The feedback was received, and the necessary changes were made.

We did a Skype call to the school in Rishikesh to present the frame work and idea, and
to confirm that the school was in an agreement with us. The Final draft of the constitution
was mailed to Rishikesh and also deployed in MGIS itself. Councils were conducted from 4th
grade to 10th grade, in order to check the use of the constitution. Later, a survey was taken
based on the specifications, to check whether the constitution helped them or not, and how
successful my project is. I also discussed with students about the constitution personally,
and their experience to work in a democratic system, their take towards their duties and
responsibility.

Throughout the process of writing a constitution, there were skills which were developed
and improvised. One of them being “thinking skills” when made into smaller points, brings
Critical thinking, transfer skills and creative skills. Critical thinking skills were applied while
writing some particular very strong articles in the constitution, that consist of very sensitive
words, which can be both used for help and in a bad way. Transfer skills were applied, when
I applied my knowledge on government and different constitutions, into a constitution
simplified for school students. Even while explaining students the use and benefits of the
constitution was there. Creative skills were applied when the cover page was designed, and
the layout was done.

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